Scars
by skyeward
Summary: Cross-posted from Tumblr. Metalbending is hard, Lin is confusing, and scars aren't so bad. At least not Lin's scars. Korralin/Linorra, inspired by a particular comic from Go Get a Roomie...see if you can find the reference. Almost positive it's finished for real this time.
1. Chapter 1

It started with a burning desire to learn metalbending.

That desire turned out to be terrible for her self-esteem, though – no matter how many times the city's foremost metalbender explained the principles, Korra just couldn't seem to find the earth in it. Eventually, Lin changed tactics.

"Stop," she said with a sigh, holding out one hand, "Just stop."

"No!" Korra kept her eyes and her concentration fixed on the silent lump of iron before her. Failure only made her angry, and she wasn't going to admit to it.

"Korra," came the Chief's voice again, and even the Avatar had to pause at the warning tone. Relenting, she tore her eyes from the recalcitrant metal and relaxed from her bending form.

"What now?" she asked, her voice petulant, a child pulled from a game that she just knew she could win, if only she played _one more time_. She scuffed one toe in the dirt, bending the resultant puff into a tiny dust devil, just to prove she could.

"Let's try something different," Lin began, gesturing the young woman towards her as she lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the ground. Korra just groaned.

"Not meditation! Come on, I already get enough of this with Ten-" Korra snapped her teeth shut around whatever she'd been about to say – the look on Lin's face brooked no arguments, and the young Avatar knew full well that the older woman could take her on. She sat.

"We're not meditating," Lin said at last, after several long moments of quiet breathing, her eyes still closed, "You need to learn to feel earth." She didn't respond to Korra's quiet snort of disbelief.

"You can't brute-force this," the metalbender added, her voice burring softly at the edges of Korra's awareness, "Metalbending requires a coolness in the head and heart, the steadiness of earth taken to a different level. You're too emotional, it gets in your way. So we have to do something a little different. Put your hands on the ground."

Without thinking, Korra obeyed.

"Feel the earth. Reach out, feel for where heavy things hold it down or growing things break it up. You'll have only vague impressions to start with."

She tried. She tried as hard as she could, pulling her earth-sense from deep in her belly and spreading it out through her hands and into the ground below her. She could, if she chose, have bent every rock in the small stone-walled arena they were occupying. And she couldn't feel a thing.

Eventually, she slammed her hands against the ground, yelling in frustration…and then in pain, as her outburst bent slivers off of the stones around her and sent them flying into her skin. The pain only drove her anger on, her face burning red and tiny puffs of smoke accompanying her exhalations.

"Korra!" The slivers fled at Lin's command, leaving weeping red holes in the Avatar's bare arms and one freely-bleeding cut across a brown cheek. She didn't care. Fists pounded the ground again and again, although she managed to refrain from throwing any actual fire or additional earth around.

"Why can't I _do_ this?" she demanded angrily, avoiding Lin's eyes lest they reflect annoyance – or worse, pity – back at her. It was one thing to fail, it was another thing to fail over and over in the company of someone she admired as deeply as she did this woman. She liked and respected Lin with all her heart, and she wanted Lin to like her, to respect her. But all she could do was fail at yet another form of bending and throw temper tantrums. _Good job acting like an adult, champ._

"I told you," Lin answered the rhetorical question calmly, kneeling to examine the cuts, "That metalbending is not a matter of raw power – it's a matter of perspective. If you can't feel the earth in the metal, you can't bend it. Now come on, we need to clean that cut on your face."

"Leave it," Korra grumbled, arms crossed over her chest, "Maybe if I have a scar the Council and the White Lotus will take me more seriously."

"Stop that," snapped the Chief of Police, grabbing her trainee ungently by the arm and dragging her inside the house, "The Council isn't going to change overnight because you hurt yourself training, and while Ms. Sato might find scars _exciting_-"

Lin cut herself off and tried to calm down – that needle was inappropriate and unprofessional, not to mention downright _nasty_ – and resumed with her usual coolness.

"You're still young enough and pretty enough that you should be trying to avoid them."

With that, she pushed the young woman down onto a small round cushion in the living room, ordering her to stay put as she disappeared for a moment. Reappearing a moment later with a first aid kid and a clean cloth, she set to cleaning Korra's self-inflicted wounds, her movements brusque but her touch shockingly gentle.

It was hard to say who was more surprised by that gentleness as she dabbed at bleeding dots, her senses reaching out to check for any speck of dirt or stone she might have missed. Korra had never experienced this level of closeness with the Chief of Police before, but she had expected a much rougher treatment. Lin, for her part, found herself prey to the odd desire to alleviate Korra's pain – nevermind that the girl had brought it on herself in more ways that one.

At last, with both women still lost in their own thoughts, Lin's attention turned to the deeper, nastier slice across the Avatar's face, which bled more steadily than any of the others.

"Hold this," she murmured, pressing the blood-spotted cloth against the cut, and Korra obeyed silently – something about Lin's proximity, about her face so close to Korra's own, filled her chest with both heat and awkwardness. She couldn't help but do as she was told, afraid that if she opened her mouth to protest, she'd blurt out something utterly inappropriate to a woman she should be respecting as a teacher, not mooning over.

As Lin turned away to rummage through the first aid kit, they each took that moment – unbeknownst to the other – to calm themselves.

"You know," Korra mumbled thoughtfully as Lin's attention returned to her, the young woman flinching at the stinging touch of alcohol against her cut, "Scars aren't so bad…"

Without thinking very hard about it – her forte – Korra lifted one hand to brush the scars running at an angle over the older woman's jaw. Lin took a deep breath and gently pushed the Avatar's hand away. It felt entirely too intimate at the moment, with her eyes and nose full of the young woman already.

"Yes, well, I haven't been young in quite a few years, and I was never pretty to begin with." A self-deprecating smile curled one corner of her mouth, fading rapidly at Korra's reaction.

"_Excuse me_?" the young woman crowed, grabbing Lin's face in both of her hands and looking downright offended.

"Stop it," Lin muttered, pushing the hands away again, "I've got to clean this cut so we can get back to training."

"No! I won't stop it! How can you say that about yourself?"

"Korra, let it go. This is not new information – it's not age taking it out of me, I was never terribly good-looking. A few scars here and there hardly make a difference to me."

"You're crazy," Korra had jumped to her feet and was practically yelling, and Lin sat back on her heels, arms crossed and annoyance settling on her face – she couldn't tend the cut, she couldn't go back to training, and she wasn't keen to hear what the young woman had to say either. She'd heard an endless variety of opinions on her looks over the course of her life – when they thought she couldn't hear – and wasn't looking forward to another one of the 'your face has character' speeches they gave when they thought she could.

"Okay, so maybe you're not _pretty_ like, like…_Asami_ is pretty," Korra started pacing, still gesticulating wildly, "But _pretty _isn't all there is. You, you're…I don't even…you're handsome! Dashing! You're all kinds of good-looking in ways that she isn't! Better ways! And you're not even that old!"

The metalbender frowned, her irritation deepening. Her voice, when it finally cut through Korra's ramblings, was hard and cold.

"In case you've forgotten who you're talking to, I am not the firebending object of your affections."

"No," came the sharp response, and then the fight went out of Korra all at once, deflated by Lin's apparent anger and her own inability to express her feelings in any coherent fashion. She dropped to her cushion with a frustrated sigh, "You're not. Let's just finish so we can get back to work."

And then Lin's face was close to hers again, and she forgot to be angry as her would-be metalbending master gave the cut one more cursory cleaning before pressing a clean white bandage over the wound and leaning back. She didn't want to be any closer for any longer than she had to just then.

"There," she announced, getting to her feet and offering Korra a hand up – the young woman hesitated, then wrapped her hand around the proffered wrist, allowing herself to indulge in a brief moment of admiration for Lin's strength as she was hauled up off the floor in one smooth motion.

Following the older woman back out onto the arena, Korra already knew she'd be unable to reliably bend so much as a raindrop at the moment – her feelings were in utter turmoil as she continued to agonize over how to phrase it, how to make Lin understand that it wasn't Mako, it wasn't Asami, it wasn't any 'pretty' person that Korra wanted to be close to. _How do I say it!?_

She stomped a foot, utterly incensed, and once again the earth responded without any clear direction. This time, though, it manifested itself as a wall that sprung up just inches in front of the Chief's face, arresting her forward momentum and causing her to swing around on the girl, intent on reading her the riot act. No bender, especially the Avatar, could afford to lose control of her bending at all – twice in less than an hour was an utter disgrace.

But before she could open her mouth, Korra was speaking, the words spilling out of her in a barely-coherent flood.

"I like your scars! I like your face, even if nobody else thinks it's pretty, and I think you're wonderful, and I don't _like_ Mako or Asami, I mean…I like them, but not like _that_, and I wish you would just _listen_ to me! You're the strongest and most capable person I know, and I want to be _like_ you, I want to be _with_ you! I'm supposed to be the Avatar, and I'm supposed to be maintaining balance in the world, but all I want to do is impress you so you'll look at _me_, at _Korra_, some stupid girl from some stupid tribe who can't do anything useful and I can't even tell you that I _like you_ properly and-"

Even with her eyes closed as they were, she could _feel_ Lin moving away from her, and it hurt. Something inside of her – responding to her incoherent but impossibly strong need for Lin to just stop going away – reached out. She felt her body moving in forms she didn't even remember learning, and with a quick backwards sweep of her arms, it felt as though Lin simply flew to her. She opened her eyes to find the woman standing within arms' reach, looking both furious and…proud?

Korra gaped like a fish, terrified for one brief instant that she'd somehow bloodbent the older woman to drag her close. Lin's voice laid that fear to rest.

"Congratulations, Avatar. You bent metal."

Lin's heavy, gloved hand thumped down on Korra's shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze, while Korra just stared at blankly.

"I…I what?"

"You bent metal. You called to my armor, and it came to you…taking me along for the ride. By the way: never do that again. Ever."

The young Avatar thought her heart might burst at that moment. Not only had she stopped Lin from moving away, she'd somehow unlocked the secret of metalbending. She felt invincible.

"Now, bend the iron."

She sighed. One step at a time. First, she'd master the hell out of metalbending, and _then_ she'd make Lin love her.


	2. Chapter 2

"Good. Now try it at speed."

Korra braced herself and took up the stance she needed, feet planted wide and arms held in a square earthbending form, ready to lash out without losing her solid position.

When the signal came – that is to say, when Lin flung the much-abused chunk of iron at her – Korra cocked back, then twisted and flung out one fist, punching the metal dead-on. She felt her power grabbing onto the flickers of earth in it, and she pushed, her concentration tight and focused, bending it to her will. Just like it had in slower drills, the material deformed around her fist, forming a sort of impromptu gauntlet that she carried forward into an incorporeal opponent without losing a bit of force. Had the punch landed, it would have been devastating.

She froze, eyes wide, and looked at her metal-covered forearm. She'd done it! Throwing her hands up in the air, she stomped the ground excitedly, even doing a bit of a hip-wiggling dance in celebration.

"I did it! I'm the first metalbending Avatar! I'm SO good! Woo!"

"Hate to break up your party," Lin's dry voice broke in, "But iron is both the first and easiest metal the police force works with. You've still got a ways to go."

"Oh," Korra deflated for a moment, then shook her head, rapidly working herself back up into a victorious tizzy. She made a fist with her metal-covered hand, banging it onto her bare hand as white teeth once again split her brown face.

"Well then let's get started! I'm an iron _master_ now, so it's time for the good stuff, right? Right?"

"No." Her voice still as dry as ever, Lin turned to walk back into her house, Korra pausing before trailing along like a single, sad little turtleduckling.

"Oh."

"It's time," the police chief intoned, sounding slightly amused for the first time, "for lunch."

Predictably, the Avatar's stomach rumbled loudly and, blushing, the younger girl followed her teacher into the house.

* * *

"You know," Korra started suddenly, between bites of food, "You really are good-looking."

Lin frowned at her, too polite to respond with her mouth full, and started to shake her head.

"No seriously. I meant what I said the other day. I've been thinking about how to say it, you know? Like, most of the things that I think of first aren't your looks, they're just how awesome you are. You're an amazing fighter, and you're smart and brave and I _wish_ I could be as cool as you! But you also-"

"Korra, stop it."

Lin had finally finished her mouthful, silently cursing the toughness of the meat, and had promptly cut off her young student.

"But-"

"But nothing! I am your teacher and you are my student, and this is _not_ an appropriate topic of discussion."

Korra met Lin's glare with one of her own, refusing to back down. After several moments of deadlocked silence, when Lin was beginning to think she might win this battle after all, the Avatar finally spoke up.

"You have a nice body."

"_KORRA!_"

"What?" Korra stood up, nearly knocking over the low table they shared, "It's _true_. No matter what else you think about yourself, you can't deny that you put in the work, the blood, sweat, and tears that made your body! You're _strong_! You're _healthy_. And I think-" she hitched up for a second, unable to voice her next thought as easily.

"Korra, _stop_," snapped Lin, irritated that once again, the Avatar was standing there, yelling at her, saying these ridiculous things that made her feel as if she were being mocked, "Just stop it! If you persist with this foolishness, I will withdraw as your teacher."

That was enough to stop Korra dead in her tracks. She dropped back to the floor with a thump, her legs bent into an inelegant W below her.

"W-withdraw? As in stop being my teacher?"

Lin simply nodded, her eyes on her half-finished meal as she made much ado about choosing the exact piece of meat that would find its way into her mouth next.

"But…but I'm still learning, and you're the best-" Lin's cold look silenced the water tribe girl, and for a moment they were both quiet, Lin slowly eating and Korra staring at the center of the table with a bleak look on her face.

Finally, the older woman broke the silence.

"It's an inappropriate topic between student and teacher," she said at last, her voice level and emotionless, "And I can't condone it. I can't force you to give it up, so if necessary I will remove myself from the situation. Walking away is clearly insufficient, so logic dictates that I resign as your instructor instead."

Korra scowled – the cadence of Lin's voice made it sound like she was reciting something. Probably some kind of police officer's training manual or something. It infuriated her.

"Fine," she ground out, pushing her plates away and rising to leave, "Then with your permission, _Instructor Bei Fong_, I will be outside practicing this morning's forms."

Lin waited, silent and refusing to look at her student, until she both heard and felt Korra at work outside. The girl was recklessly bending iron and stone in ways that had nothing to do with the forms she'd learned, and likely making a mess of the place. The metalbender sighed then, her head hanging and her hands coming up to cover her face.

"What do I do with her?"

* * *

"Korra _what_?" The outrage in Tenzin's voice was clear, as were the words as his volume rose dramatically, "What did you-"

"The next word out of your mouth," Lin interrupted coolly, "Had better not be 'do', because I didn't do anything to her, and you of all people should know that."

The man sighed and removed his hands from the table, tucking them inside his voluminous sleeves once again.

"I'm sorry Lin," he said after a moment, "I do know that, I simply reacted without thinking. I suppose the more appropriate question is 'what do you plan to do?'"

"That's the problem," she sighed, unusually fidgety, "I don't know what to do. I told her that if she didn't stop, I'd resign as her teacher. That just made her angry, and obviously we're not going to make any progress with her bending that way."

"Yes," he replied slowly, stroking his beard absently as he thought, "I've noticed that her meditation and airbending have both been suffering these last few days. She's terrible at separating her emotions from her bending…you'd think the White Lotus would have taught her that."

"Yes, well." Lin was clearly unamused.

"I don't know what to tell you, my friend. I don't think resigning as her teacher will help anything, and if there's one thing I've learned since her arrival, it's that telling a teenager what to do is the most effective possible way to achieve the exact opposite of that."

"Things were so much easier when she resented me for arresting her."

"That they were," Tenzin sighed again, looking out of the open window, "That they were."

"So…?" Lin's voice was uncharacteristically hesitant, and Tenzin heaved yet another long-suffering sigh, looking back at his oldest friend one more time.

"I'll talk to her."

* * *

"Korra?"

There was no reply. With a nervous glance around – he would never be able to explain his nervousness with being in the women's dormitory – Tenzin knocked on the door.

"Korra! I know you're there, Lin said you never showed up to training today."

Silence. As it dragged on, the older man gave serious consideration to the idea of simply opening the door and barging in – as much as the idea bothered him. He'd almost worked himself up to grasping the doorknob when Korra's voice finally rang out.

"I quit! Go away!"

"You can't just quit! You made the commitment; you have to carry it through. And please open the door, I don't enjoy having a conversation from the hallway."

More silence, and then a soft click as the latch was lifted. The door slid open just wide enough for Korra's face to peek through. She looked ruffled, tired, and strangely at peace – no tear tracks, no scowl, no apparent problem. In the back of Tenzin's mind, a red flag went up.

"I can quit anything except being the Avatar, and I quit metalbending. Chief Bei Fong was going to resign as my teacher anyway. Anything else?"

"Korra," he started once more, then paused, "Look, Lin told me what happened, and you can't quit just because-"

"She _told you_?" And there, at last, was the anger he'd been expecting from the volatile young woman, her voice rising, "Why would she _do_ that?"

"She wanted my advice," came the reply, the airbender carefully settling his wise-old-man cloak around his shoulders, "She asked me what she should do, and she asked me to talk to you. Lin doesn't want to stop being your teacher, you know, but she can't encourage an inappropriate attachment."

"Well it's none of your business," snapped the girl, "And anyway I told you I quit. So it's not a problem anymore. _I'm_ not a problem anymore."

She slammed the door in his face.

"Now go away," she yelled through the door. Then, as he turned to leave she added, "I'll see you at meditation tomorrow!"

* * *

Tenzin was honestly surprised the following morning, when Korra did indeed appear on time for meditation – and was even wearing her proper airbender clothing, although it suited her not at all. That red flag was back.

As the day wore on, the flag got bigger and brighter, until finally the man was ready to snap – and for no reason that he could adequately explain. Korra hadn't fallen asleep or even complained during meditation, she hadn't once yelled or thrown fire during her usually unhappy encounters with the spinning gates – she'd even made it through a couple of times. Overall, she'd been quiet, obedient, and a pleasure to work with. And it was, frankly, scaring him.

As they gave their final bows, master to pupil, he finally dared to say something.

"Korra…are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Master Tenzin," came the quiet reply, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to the baths and then into the city for a while."

"Yes of course," he replied almost automatically, then opened his mouth to say something else…but she was already turning away, and he had no idea what he'd planned to say anyway.

* * *

Korra returned to the island late that evening, practically vibrating with excitement – for a prissy rich girl, Asami sure could come through when she needed to! The Avatar ate a quick, cold supper standing up in the kitchen, and then dashed off to her room to unwrap the bundle she'd carried over from the city.

A set of the cables used by the Republic City Police lay gleaming before her, brand new and freshly oiled, practically begging to be used. Not that Korra could, of course. The old cables, maybe – they were almost pure steel, and she'd had some success with that metal in her solitary training. These cables, though, were made with periodic ceramic links, redesigned to protect the benders who used them from electricity. They were notoriously difficult to use with any grace; the differences between the ceramic and metal made it awkward for even skilled benders to grasp both simultaneously. There were only a few sets like this employed around the city so far.

"Just you wait," the Avatar muttered as she laid hands on the cables, easily latching onto the more obvious ceramic, then losing her mental grip as her attention turned to seeking the minute traces of earth in the metal.

"Don't you fight me…I'm going to bend you, and then I'll be a master metalbender and nobody can tell me I'm just a student and it's just an 'inappropriate attachment'."

She fell asleep that way, the cables still stubbornly coiled inside their holder, and she dreamed of flinging them this way and that, of grabbing Lin up and holding her _still_ for once.

"No more running," she mumbled in her sleep, "I like you, so deal with it!"


	3. Chapter 3

Korra's day fell into a rhythm that soothed her and frightened everyone around her. She alternated between training with Tenzin and locking herself in her room all day, as absent as if she'd been in the city training, and took her one day a week off as per usual. _She_ seemed flush with success, her body as hard and well-trained as ever despite what seemed like half of her days passing in utter stillness. Everyone _around_ her danced on pins and needles, utterly unsure of how to approach the situation – and after some time, whether to approach it at all.

"She _seems_ fine," Bolin commented one day, nearly three weeks into this bizarre situation, watching Korra go through her last round of increasingly intense airbending katas, her expression smooth and her eyes clear. He was waiting to drag her into the city, hoping that a night out with friends might prompt her to at least hint at what was going on.

"That," Tenzin sighed, leaning against his staff, "Is exactly the problem. I've never seen her be such a dutiful student. She meditates without complaining, she does her katas, engages in sparring, and does whatever's asked of her. I can't scold her for being a good student!"

"And she's still shutting you down whenever you ask?" From somewhere, Bolin had procured a small bag of seaweed snacks, and offered them to the man beside him.

"No thank you. And yes," another heavy sigh, "I ask when she's in her room, I ask when she's out of her room. I ask indirectly, I've had Pema and the children ask…I asked Lin to come out and talk to her, but she refuses."

"I mean, it doesn't look like she's wasting away or anything," noted the earthbender around a mouthful of crunchy seaweed, "If anything she looks even more built than before!"

Suddenly, the girl in question came to an utter standstill, her body curved, halfway through one of the standard wind-sweeps-earth forms. Her eyes wide, mouth rounded into a shocked O, she remained still for several long seconds. Tenzin and Bolin shared a confused look, and when they turned back, the Avatar was racing towards them.

"Sorry Bolin can't come to the city tonight I had an idea another time maybe," she shouted as she dashed past him and into the women's dorms.

"What-" he started, but she was already gone. He turned his confused gaze on the airbending master.

"I have no idea," the older man said before the younger even had a chance to formulate the question, "I have absolutely no idea."

* * *

Korra had to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep her victory shout to herself. Just like all that time ago in the arena, the fluid forms of airbending had yielded the answer to her most pressing problem.

Best to be sure, though – so she did it again, planting her feet and moving in a sharper, more square, earthbending version of the wind-sweeps-earth. And the cables moved, undulating gracefully through the air in twin arcs of steel and ceramic. Inspired, she moved again, her hands curling and her arms slipping in towards her body, an airbending move meant to bring the body to rest. It worked for the cables as well, and they obediently curled back up in the holder.

Korra flung herself down on the thin bed and buried her face in her pillow, shrieking with delight for several long moments before finally rolling onto her back, breathless. She'd done it. She didn't have the fine-tuned, instinctive control that Lin did, but she also wasn't daughter to the greatest earthbender to have ever lived. She was satisfied.

Finally, after drowning in her own happiness for a while longer, she flung herself off of the bed and shrugged on the harness that would hold the metal cables to her body. Extending and retracting the cables wouldn't be enough to prove herself.

Later, she wouldn't recall how many hours she spent experimenting and refining moves, wouldn't remember the a-ha moment that led her to draw on aspects of fire- and waterbending, wouldn't remember sending Pema away as gently as she could, unable to eat with this excitement boiling in her veins. All she remembered was the flush of victory when, despite the narrow confines of her bedroom, she successfully performed the kata she'd cobbled together, metal vines moving at her command. It wasn't effortless like moving water or thrilling like fire, it didn't feel crisp and logical like moving earth, and it wasn't as calming and swishy as air…but it was a little of each, and it worked.

And she remembered the overwhelming urge to go show Lin _right now_, tempered only by the knowledge that it was the middle of the night and Lin wouldn't like that _at all_. Too wired to sleep, she paced her room restlessly until the first grey light of the false dawn, when she couldn't take it anymore. Unable to even conceive of a way to move quietly down the hallway when her whole body nearly shook with excitement, she instead shimmied out of her bedroom window and coasted down to the water on a gust of air. She killed it well above the surface, heart in her throat as she dove into the cold, black waters and began to waterbend her way towards the city lights in the distance.

* * *

Lin stepped out of her house at precisely the same time as she ever had, as spic as span as she'd ever been. She'd eaten a sensible breakfast, looking out over the stone arena that she'd long since put back into order, checked over her armor before donning it. Then she went outside to begin another long, frustrating, only occasionally rewarding day as the Republic City Chief of Police.

And then she nearly stepped on the Avatar.

Stopping with her booted foot mere inches from the sleeping, orange-and-yellow-clad form, Lin seriously considered completing the step, or at least kicking the sleeping girl. But it wouldn't have helped.

So instead, she gave Korra's side a little push with her toe, too hard for a nudge and too soft for a kick. To her surprise, the girl simply rolled over onto her stomach, revealing a very familiar piece of equipment.

"And where did you get one of those?" she muttered to herself as she pushed Korra again, a little harder, and then a third time.

Finally the girl stirred, blue eyes – how had Lin forgotten how shockingly blue they were? – looking blearily up at her for a few breathless seconds. Then she leapt to her feet with a shout, nearly sending Lin onto her backside.

"Lin!" shouted the excited Avatar, "Lin I have to show you!"

"Not now," snapped the Chief, making to step around her former pupil, "I'm on my way to work." She felt a little bad for speaking so coldly to the girl who'd once spoken to warmly to her, but she couldn't help her annoyance with the whole situation. If Korra hadn't spoken up in the first place…once again, Lin's only recourse was to remove herself from the scene.

"Stop!" Korra's voice held a definite note of pleading, "Stop and just watch for a minute, I just want to show you!"

Lin drew up short, unaccountably moved by the girl's clear desperation.

"Fine," she ground out, turning around, "But you have one minute, and then I'm leaving for work. And we stay out here."

Korra just nodded, scrubbing the beginnings of tears out of her eyes. Lin couldn't meet them, and instead kept her gaze above the girl's head and off into the distance.

When Korra took a bending stance, Lin noted it only peripherally, her eyes still on the pale stone walls of the City. When Korra began to bend, Lin's gaze flicked towards her briefly – she'd almost forgotten about the new-looking coil holder on the girl's back. When Korra continued to bend, Lin finally looked at her properly, and her jaw dropped a little.

She used no familiar forms, although Lin could see the shadows of them in her movements. She moved gracefully, quick and slow by turns, and the metal coils danced in the grip of her power. She held them close to defend, whipped them a little further away – still too close for practicality – to attack. And she just kept moving.

One minute, two, a handful of the things slipped by as Korra bent and Lin watched. Finally, slowly, as if it hurt to bring her strange kata to completion, Korra's hands curled and her elbows slotted in against her sides.

There was dead silence for several long, strained seconds.

And then Korra's stomach gurgled, and Lin nearly broke into hysterical giggles. She had to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle the undignified noises while she got ahold of herself.

"Where did you get those cables?" she finally asked, as deadpan as possible. Korra looked up into the clear green eyes of her former Master and shrugged guiltily.

"Asami."

"I thought so. And I presume you made up those forms yourself."

"Well, yeah."

"In your room."

"Um…"

Korra's stomach rumbled again. This prompted an aggrieved sigh from the older woman, who pressed the fingers of her right hand against her forehead as if to stave off a headache before waving towards the house with her other hand.

"You may as well come in and have some breakfast."

* * *

"Korra, you are the most irresponsible young person I have met in a long, long time." Tenzin's voice was rough, and in an uncharacteristic burst of anger, he slammed one hand down on the table, making the already hangdog expression on Korra's face deepen even further.

"Do you have any idea how worried everyone was about you? Don't look at me like that," he snapped in response to Korra's confused expression, "If you had _thought_ _about it_ before locking yourself in your room every second day to try to re-invent metalbending, you'd…I don't even know. I was pulling my beard out, Pema and the children kept asking if they'd done something wrong, even your friends from the city have been out here, trying to figure out what was wrong with you."

Korra just nodded meekly, having been read a similar riot act by Lin over breakfast, after which she'd been unceremoniously turned out to go apologize. Mako, Bolin, and Asami had been easy enough – they saw her on a regular basis when she went to pro-bending practice, and they hadn't had to watch her lock herself in her room day after day.

The airbending family had been much more affected by her sudden, selfish withdrawal, and she couldn't bring herself to dispute most of Tenzin's argument. He sighed, suddenly looking tired.

"All over some juvenile crush."

"No," Korra said clearly and calmly, more self-assured than she had been in a very long time, and the airbender raised his head to look curiously at her, "It's not a crush. That's why I had to do this. I love her, Tenzin, and I wasn't even allowed to say anything because she was my teacher. Well, she's not my teacher anymore and I can say whatever I want. I love Lin Beifong."

"You…Korra, that's not even possible." Tenzin fumbled for words, unsure of how to express his utter disbelief while at the same time dissuading the determined young woman.

"It is and I am. Deal with it," she added with a non-situation-appropriate grin and fistpump, to which the older man only replied with a shake of his head.

"Jokes aren't really necessary. Korra…you're seventeen. Lin is-" he cut himself off, lest an errant word make it back to the woman in question, "Lin is not seventeen anymore. She's old enough to be your mother!" Older than Korra's mother, in fact, but he wasn't going to voice that thought either.

"I know and I don't care," Korra responded, still smiling, and simply repeated it like a mantra in the face of every argument that Tenzin could come up with.

Finally, he threw up his hands and played his last card.

"And what does Lin think of all this?"

Korra shrugged, her smiling falling a bit as her eyes darted to one side and then to the other before she finally sighed a little.

"She…well, she said some of the same stuff you did, about me being irresponsible, and she said my forms need work because I obviously invented them in my bedroom, which is too small a space for proper metalbending. She won't teach me anymore. But," she added, just as the airbender was ready to heave a sigh of relief, "She said that we can talk. And she promised, if I 'stop acting like an idiot and start acting like an Avatar', to take me and my feelings seriously."

_And she called me pretty again_, Korra crowed in the safety of her own head, since she'd been explicitly directed not to tell Tenzin anything about that, or about how Lin had haltingly, almost shyly, admitted to some nonspecific feelings of her own.

"If…if that's what Lin said, then I'll respect it. Just…go apologize to Pema and the children, alright? And never do this again!"

Korra popped up from her side of the table like a cork under pressure.

"I promise!"

And as she dashed down the hall to find and beg forgiveness from the rest of the airbending family, Korra felt as though her heart might burst. She'd mastered metalbending – sort of – and confessed her feelings to Lin yet again. And while the older woman wasn't quite ready to fall madly in love with her Avatar, she wasn't indifferent either. It was only a matter of time, really. She found herself singing softly under her breath.

"Lavender's green, lavender's blue, if you love me, I will love you…"

END.


End file.
